BLOG: Salford is Salford...not Manchester

What have Salford, Manchester and streaky bacon got in common? As calls are made for Salford to merge with Manchester, Niamh Lewis sinks her teeth into a debate that is providing plenty of food for thought...

First of all let me get this straight. Salford is a city situated on the edge of Manchester. So close that as soon as you walk five minutes away from Deansgate in Manchester you see this sign:

Salford is a place in its own right. Manchester is also a place in its own right. They just happen to be next to each other in the same county.

Salford used to be a part of Lancashire hence why Old Trafford Cricket Ground is called “Lancashire Cricket Ground”.

Indeed, Trafford is also a place of its own and the Borough of Trafford also used to be part of Lancashire.

Since Greater Manchester took over the surrounding areas of Manchester, it now covers quite a vast regional space. So if Salford should scrap its name you might as well call Bolton, Manchester, or Bury, Manchester, or Stockport, Manchester.

Salford is Salford. Granted it is a small city, which has smaller areas like Eccles, Pendleton, Swinton, Adelphi and so on. Yes it doesn’t really have a centre and yes it does have a bad reputation or could be argued HAD a bad reputation. Salford is industrial, just like Stoke-on-Trent it is a place made up of other little places.

But why should Salford scrap its name? We have a city council, we are famous for quite a few things, albeit some may be bad things, but people still know where Salford is, and what is here so why should we be removed from the map?

Imagine a slice of bacon. Manchester is the meat with Salford being the fat around the edge. The meat is the entirety of the slice, yet the slice still contains fat. A lot of people don’t like the fat (Salford’s bad reputation) and cut the fat off the bacon (“I live in Manchester. Not Salford”). But then there are the people who still like the fat and eat it.

But what about the little piece of fat that is always situated in the middle of the bacon towards the bottom. This is Moss Side, one of the roughest estates in Manchester, and not just Moss Side, but metaphorically stands for all the fat that Manchester has too.

So what about streaky bacon? A lot of people like that, and it has more fat than normal bacon. Salford and Manchester act more like streaky bacon by working with each other instead of working like Hadrian’s wall and cutting the fat off the edge of the bacon.

It’ll be the same if Scotland gets independence. On the one hand from this government’s point of view, there will be a big black cross on the map beyond Hadrian’s wall. On the other hand if Scotland decide to stay in the UK they might as well just change their name to England…???

All types of meat (cities) has fat. Some types more than others. But this isn’t to say you need to get rid of the fat. You need the fat to cook the meat, (support and make up a society) and you need the fat and the juices to make a good gravy to go alongside the meat.

In the last 10 years or so Salford has changed and re-developed for the better. This is obvious from years ago when my father and I would venture into Salford to watch Manchester United play at Old Trafford.

Now that I live here, there has been so much investment that we should be proud of. We have a university that has positively changed and is investing more money into more facilities and is now making its way up the league tables. It is also the only university at MediaCityUK.

MediaCityUK would not exist if Peel Holdings did not decide to re-develop Salford Quays. Many laughed at Peel Holdings for wanting to do so as it was left to decay for so long with the Manchester Ship Canal being so polluted beyond any hope of positive change. Peel Holdings did it. And now look at them.

The BBC moved five departments up north. Ok, let's be honest, they did it because they were criticised for being too commercialised in the centre of London. They had to realise that there was something beyond the capital and a vast majority of their audience are actually in the rest of the UK.

They have been there for about five years and certainly in that time things have started to change. We have Salford Quays which brings many events to the area every year from watersports to shows at The Lowry. We have the famous Salford Lads Club that is iused as a vital community resource but more broadly by tourists having a photo taken outside of the famous old landmark.

Salford is quirky and that’s why we love it. If Salford became Manchester, the University of Salford would then be “the University of Manchester”, and that might raise some copyright issues.

Salford Quays would then be Manchester Quays, and that just does not sound as good.

What would happen to Salford City Council? Would that just lead to yet more job cuts?

Salford is shedding its perception of being an undesirable place to be. So to the people at the BBC that ran the article, and to those that say “ooooh you don’t want to go there, it’s rough is Salford”, this is me saying why don’t you have a closer look and find out what it is really like.